How App Democratization Sparks Citizen Developers
By Sandy Cross, Modern Experiences Practice Lead, Insight Canada
If it even needed to be said: Democratization is a good thing — especially in IT. There just isn’t a downside to technology being made available to more and more people. The end result? Greater innovation, which, when you stop to think about it, was the point all along.
Go back far enough to the wheel, for example. Can anyone conceive of life without it?
There’s little way around the same holding true for app development one day, through tools like Microsoft Power Apps. The accessibility of it (and programs like it) is a catalyst for positive change. This makes it easier for people with zero or close to zero coding experience to build other apps, leading to greater development as well, even if indirectly.
Professional vs. citizen developers
App democratization is unlikely to render professional app developers, with actual coding expertise, obsolete. In this case, greater accessibility doesn’t lead to obsolescence. There will always be requests for expert consultants to come in to lend a hand to “citizen developers,” i.e., end users who create applications for themselves.
We’re all witnessing the emergence of “no-code” (drag-and-drop functionality, like what you find in Microsoft PowerPoint) or “low-code” (drag-and-drop with the need for inputs/formulas à la Microsoft Excel) programs like Power Apps. They’ve empowered end users with the ability to automate mundane processes. They’ve surged in popularity in the modern workplace alongside generative AI as a result.
As an illustration, leading consulting firm Forrester estimates that “the generative AI market will grow 36% annually for the rest of the decade — and low-code and DPA platforms are perfectly poised to benefit from this shift. A roughly comparable AI-fueled explosion in citizen development and AI-infused platforms could drive the low-code and DPA market to $50 billion by 2028 (33% annual growth).”
Take Power Apps as an example. With the understanding that Power Apps is a low-code solution, users will still face obstacles. They may require expertise that exceeds their capabilities. On top of that, businesses consistently face challenges rolling out apps that require deep development. So, that professional-coding skill set is still extremely valuable, with a lot of the solutions built by citizen developers being extremely niche in nature. If you’re looking for an app to roll out to every user in an organization, you’ll need a team to first build and then support it.
Citizen development is something else entirely.
Citizen-developer success stories
Insight has firsthand experience with numerous Power Apps-driven client stories. For example, Insight has leveraged Power Apps to help:
· A supermarket chain streamline task management in real time on mobile devices
· An airline easily search for flight data info, saving hundreds of hours of work
· A car-part manufacturing company automate quality-control checks
One common case we’ve run into is with inventory tracking. Another is Insight building asset-management apps for clients. One client started a citizen developer program, which has been up and running for two years, resulting in 100 apps — all of which speaks to Power App’s versatility and how there’s indeed room for both professional and citizen developers.
Speaking further to the appetite for democratized app development, Insight has a Citizen Developer Program service — one of many engagements our Modern Experiences practice offers that leverages Power Apps.
Ultimately, professional guidance remains a necessity. However, there is value in empowering those closest to a problem to solve it themselves… or at least get the ball rolling. Once citizen developers have the art of the possible down with Power Apps, they can take that knowledge to identify and tackle opportunities in their workdays or in their teams to streamline tasks.
Power Apps as a leading development option
Power Apps alternatives exist. However, if you’re a Microsoft shop with all of your data already in the Microsoft ecosystem, it just makes sense. Consider the rich integration opportunities with applications like Microsoft SharePoint, which houses a lot of the data from which apps built in Power Apps can draw.
Even if you’re not a Microsoft shop, Power Apps leverages third-party connectors — which number in the hundreds — to facilitate linking a developed app to a non-Microsoft system. So, there’s a level of flexibility that organizations get with Power Apps that they wouldn’t necessarily elsewhere. After all, commonly cited disadvantages of democratized app development include vendor lock-in, where it’s hard to mix and match solutions because incompatibility between brands is a hurdle to overcome.
Vendor lock-in can get expensive, putting up developmental barriers, which ironically runs counter to the whole point of democratization. Furthermore, citizen developers may feel restricted by an apparent lack of options provided by no-code/low-code platforms currently available. However, that’s just the sheer nature of the phenomenon, which is much more trend than fad.
There’s an app for that.
It’s at least easy to get behind the overall goal, as far as the democratization of modern app development is concerned: Enable non-coders to develop their own apps.
With that, two conclusions spring to mind:
1. That’s exactly what’s happening (check).
2. There’s logically going to be some trade-off in terms of functionality.
The skill set of citizen developers is so far removed from that of professional developers that they’re building different things. As with the wheel, consider a top-selling sedan and an electric vehicle. Those are two different markets. Going down one road leads to faster development, the other obviously longer, but more comprehensive development with an eye toward sustainability.
In truth, they actually propel each other forward. Professional developers stretch the boundaries of what’s possible in the field, eventually resulting in greater customization capabilities in citizen-developer solutions. At the same time, democratization pushes professionals to be better so that they separate themselves from the pack. It depends on the need, but, again, there’s always going to be one for professional developers, especially with the paths as divergent as they are.
Ultimately, any argument against democratization is one to stifle innovation. The expression goes, whatever that need, “there’s an app for that.” In a world where anyone can develop an app, that’s even more of a certainty.
